Abortion - Report of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution

Red C poll out at 5 p.m. - whether they publish their referendum poll then, or merely the state of the parties, remains to be seen.

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Red C poll out at 5 p.m. - whether they publish their referendum poll then, or merely the state of the parties, remains to be seen.

Michael Brennan tweeted after the party results - Eighth poll being held back until tomorrow morning.

Consonata wrote: »

I find it interesting that if the referendum does swing no, it'll be older women that do it, not older men

Well no. Women of all ages except that one group are polling a clear majority of "Yes".

Or if you prefer, men of all ages except that one group, poll more "No"s than women of the same age.

IOW, if there is an overall No vote, it will be because of the male vote and not the female one.
Or at best, because of men and the women who originally voted to out the clause in.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

It's not both sides, it's one side.

in your experience, but by the sounds of it not in that poster's experience.

spacecoyote wrote: »

No, im very much of a similar opinion to hotblack, I was just trying to be somewhat objective & take the whole posters & ads piece out of my point.

I still think that the attitude & ideology of the pro-lifers in general is appalling

I've come up with an acronym for 'em.

GBAAC.

Give Birth At All Costs.

Itssoeasy wrote: »

I listened to a debate between Colm O' Gorman and Declan Ganley. Several things annoyed me. One was Declan ganley interrupting. Also the way Declan Ganley tried to conflate the very serious issue of the cervical screening issue and using that to cast doubt on the HSE. I take issue with that point for personal reasons. There are clear issues within the health service here but to suggest that the front line staff of the health service can't be trusted is untrue. Also Colm o Gorman sighing loudly was extremely off putting. I remembered why I've stopped listening to anything about this referendum, or as little as possible.

I didn't listen to it, but I was expecting someone to play that card at some point. I saw something that he also said anyone with medical training could sign off on an abortion, and not just a doctor, which is total and utter nonsense (assuming what I read was accurate).

What the cervical check and the eighth have in common is that they're both part of a culture of control.

The worst thing about the cervical check issue is not the mistakes. They happen. Misdiagnoses & false negatives are an unavoidable part of healthcare. The worst part is the deliberate attempt to hide the error. Directions from "on high" to play down the importance of this information and directions to "just write it in the notes" rather than tell a patient or their family straight out, i.e. Cover your ass. Doctors who fail to directly inform patients of critical information like this should be struck off, if not face criminal convictions. It's unjustifiable.

It's another facet of a medical culture where doctors tell women what to do, where doctors control the flow of information and are assigned the duties of making decisions on behalf of capable patients.

No, the cervical check thing wasn't caused by the eighth. But having the eighth amendment in place is the lynchpin in the medical culture of control over women; specifically when it comes to gynecological matters. Remove it from the constitution and all of the rest will begin to crumble.

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

The No side are understandably confused, since on their posters criminals can pretend to be nurses.

I used to work in a hospital patient accounts department. I'll never forget what I saw. :D

Shock horror as a post on Politics.ie actually delivers a highly credible, constituency-by-constituency result prediction!

http://www.politics.ie/forum/elections/263771-predict-referendum-result-18.html#post12059365

I've been predicting 55-45 Yes since the outset, some polls are there already, others are moving that direction, still looks good to me.

But there is a lot of uncertainty. A big turnout could see a crushing Yes win. A low one could see No squeak it.

Red C poll result:

Yes 56%
No 27%
DK 17%

Polled panel asked to predict final result:

Yes 56%
No 44%

Apparently the latter question was bang on with SSM.

Infini wrote: »

Was looking at the papers there earlier and one of them noted that the repealing of the 8th will be successful primarily because the urban voters are predicted to mobilize in significant numbers as well as those on the east cost.

The very same pattern as the original 1983 map:

no posters like that in my town, just yes for healthcare etc

and if someone thinks the woman is a murderer no poster in the world is going to convince them otherwise so i wouldnt worry about it

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Very few of the Yes posters follow this line. ROSA are a small group with little funding.

I don't think they're the only ones making this point. It's far from the first poster I've seen taking this line.

I can't remember exact posters because they tend to blur together a bit in the memory, but I believe there's a similar one on the Kinsale Road Roundabout, for example.

The general thread is about it being women's business what they choose.
I don't disagree with that point but I'm not convinced it's going to change any minds.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

When your opponent is lying through their teeth the whole time, if you just contradict the lies you never get the chance to make your own argument.

The lies of the No side are better off being ignored, as far as the Yes posters are concerned.

That is true, but I don't think they're making a compelling argument. I think they're preaching to the converted.

If people are concerned with having blood on their hands over some kind of pre-natal genocide, they're not going to be arsed about women getting more freedom.

I feel like I haven't seen enough undercutting of the 8th even from the perspective that someone who generally isn't in favour of abortion, but just wants to stop the flights abroad and give clarity to it as a healthcare issue, and stop the No side from being able to go on about "social abortions".

I'm not sure how you go about it, but this whole shtick about babies heartbeats being detectable and all that other heartstring-tugging bollocks is utterly worthless as an argument. That's a tough one to go against because a lot of people can't think about this rationally, but that's what makes it such a dangerous line of argument.

I was chatting to a friend of mine campaigning for Yes during the weekend. She was pretty nervous about the whole thing, about the kinds of questions she was having to field and the general lack of understanding of what the referendum is about. The undecideds were telling her of their fear of people just going down town for an abortion for the craic, sort of thing.

Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention, or whatever driving routes I take aren't representative, but I think, leaving aside the sheer bull**** ones, No have a lot of cynical but effective ads that I don't feel are being challenged, and could easily sway enough people for this not to pass.